All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings... We must run roughshod over all these ancient puerilities, overturn the barriers that reason never erected, give back to the arts and sciences the liberty that is so precious to them.

This root [the potato], no matter how much you prepare it, is tasteless and floury. It cannot pass for an agreeable food, but it supplies a food sufficiently abundant and sufficiently healthy for men who ask only to sustain themselves. The potato is criticized with reason for being windy, but what matters windiness for the vigorous organisms of peasants and laborers?

Only God and some few rare geniuses can keep forging ahead into novelty.

Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.

All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.

Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.

Philosophy is as far separated from impiety as religion is from fanaticism.